Getting the Poverty One Voted For

Starting with the village idiot and ending with the carpet-bagger:

$78.3 billion: The size of this year’s federal budget deficit. The figure clocks in at almost double the projected shortfall in the government’s fiscal update almost a year ago. It’s also larger than the $68.5-billion deficit the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer projected in September.

$141.4 billion: New spending in the budget over the next five years. The total includes almost $59 billion over five years for defence, funding that does not include planned expenditures on the planned purchase of up to 12 new submarines. Another $27.3 billion over five years will pay for the government’s decision to cut the lowest income tax bracket from 15 to 14 per cent. Billions more are earmarked for infrastructure, including more than $12 billion over five years to support “strategic industries,” $5 billion over three years on hospital construction, and $4.2 billion over five years for infrastructure to promote trade, like ports and rail lines.

(Sidebar: where is this money going to come from?) 

$58.2 billion: The amount by which Liberal government expects to curb federal spending over the next five years, through reducing funding across departments, including cuts to disability pensions for RCMP officers. The government also expects the federal civil service to shrink in three years by about 40,000 jobs – or 10 per cent – from its peak in 2023-24.

(Sidebar: but not defuncting useless, money-wasting departments and services.) 

13.2 per cent: The new “effective tax rate” for businesses in Canada, after changes that include the introduction of a new “super deduction.” The policy makes changes that allow businesses investing in capital like manufacturing equipment, computers and clean energy generation to more quickly lower their tax bills. The budget argues this change helps make Canada a more attractive place to do business compared with G7 peers.

(Sidebar: no one is going to invest in a country with a high tax, extreme regulations, and property that can be swept up from under them, a la courts in BC.) 

$1 trillion: The total amount of public and private sector investment that the government claims its policies will “enable” over the next five years. The total is part of the budget’s overall narrative, that the Carney government is shifting Canada’s spending power to spur businesses to invest and produce more, thereby reducing the country’s reliance on the unreliable United States and making Canadians – as Carney has said – “masters in our own home.”

(Sidebar: again - who is going to invest in Canada?) 

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Robert Asselin, a former adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau, said the Liberals were able to find a “good balance” between investments that are required to help businesses but also some considerable constraint on the fiscal side.

“In the circumstances, I think they did pretty well,” said Asselin, now senior vice president of policy at the Business Council of Canada.

(Sidebar: you would.)

“I think (the Liberals) were judicious in the things that they cut. To be honest, I hope it’s not the end… It’s really important to create this fiscal space going forward.”

Liberals found a total of $59.6 billion in savings over five years, mostly thanks to a comprehensive expenditure review where each department had to find 15 per cent in savings over three years and government plans to optimize productivity in government.

The budget revealed that the departments of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Indigenous Services and Women and Gender Equality were spared from the steep cuts asked by the Liberals over the summer and are instead subject to a two per cent savings target.

(Sidebar: every department there could be cut and nothing of value would be lost.)

The public service cuts are also not as draconian as feared by some, with the budget predicting a decline of 40,000 positions — or 10 per cent — from a peak of 368,000 members in 2023-2024 mostly through normal attrition through retirements and voluntary departures.

(Sidebar: not enough. Cosmetic cuts.)

In order to get to that number, the government intends to offer packages to incentivize early retirements for public servants aged 50 and above who meet certain criteria.

The government will also strive to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance productivity and improve services in the public service with the help of a “made-in-Canada AI tool.”

(Sidebar: what can go wrong? Like Arrive-Can.)

It all comes with sacrifice.

Not Carney's, of course:

First it was Prime Minister Mark Carney saying that young people would need to sacrifice, now it’s the head of the Bank of Canada warning of a lower standard of living. It seems that Canada’s leadership sees us as a country in decline, but it shouldn’t be this way.

In fact, that was the point that Bank Governor Tiff Macklem was making on Wednesday. Macklem was talking about the impact of tariffs and American protectionist policy on Canada’s economy.

“Unfortunately, what that means is that unless something else changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be,” Macklem said.

There are people taking this to mean that Canadians should simply get used to making less money, having a lower standard of living. That’s not the case at all. A key part of his statement was, “unless something else changes” we will have lower incomes.

(Sidebar: ... or, making less money and have a lower standard of living.) 

Macklem made clear that the kinds of changes we need can’t be handled by the Bank of Canada. It’s up to the federal government and Canada’s business community.

**

Mr. Carney’s financial interests appear to be tied up in aweb of offshore holdings and complex international ventures, with reported links to Brookfield’s multibillion-dollar overseas funds and Chinese government-connected entities.

(Sidebar: oh, my!) 

Brookfield has been deeply involved in Chinese real estate and infrastructure investment, courting entities close to the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Carney’s conflicts and contradictions are numerous — and from any vantage point other than the billionaire’s jet, deeply concerning. For example, he has publicly championed environmentalism and opposed pipelines and fossil fuel projects, even as Brookfield’s ventures under his leadership expanded fossil fuel infrastructure abroad.

Most recently, Brookfield — in which Mr. Carney appears to retain significant interests — signed a multibillion-dollar development deal with the Trump administration focused on energy and infrastructure, while Canada continues to flounder economically.

 Canadians should be asking: who exactly is prospering in this arrangement, and who is losing?

Mr. Carney’s decision to move Brookfield’s head office from Canada to New York, his use of offshore accounts, and his refusal to clarify whether he pays any taxes in Canada reveal a mindset more international adventurer than national steward. Being more personally invested in Cayman Islands ledgers and foreign ventures than in Canadian prosperity is hardly reassuring.

On any reasonable analysis, while Mr. Carney may have become much richer over the past five years, most Canadians have not. In fact, most are far worse off.

(Sidebar: it sucks to be Canadians now.)

So, where are we as a nation?

Much poorer and far more taxed.

Elbows up!